Celebrating Women's History Month - Mary Ann Campana

Mary Ann Campana
Excerpted from The Italians of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley, Ohio by Joseph Louis Sacchini

Born in Italy, Mary Ann Campana immigrated to Youngstown in 1921. She enrolled in the Youngstown schools attending Oak Street Elementary, Lincoln School and East High School. While working at a five and ten cent store after graduation, she saved part of her earnings for flying lessons and at 18 became Ohio’s first licensed woman teenage pilot. On Sunday, June 4, 1933 Mary Ann set the world’s light airplane endurance record of 12 hours, 27 minutes flying over Youngstown and surrounding communities. She prepared for 5 months and had 44 hours of flight experience. Her aircraft was a Taylor Cub Airplane with a 40 horsepower Continental engine; she had 40 gallons of gasoline and no parachute. Severe electrical storms forced her to land.

Mary Ann Campana was a true pioneer in the field of aviation for women which in the early years was male dominated. In 1993 an Ohio Historical Marker was placed at the Youngstown Warren Regional Airport in honor of her aeronautical and business accomplishments. Ms. Campana resides in Boardman.

Celebrating Women's History Month

In Search of Polly Potter

This is the story of a search for a woman who was born over 200 years ago; a woman whose early influence helped shape the character of a famous man; a woman who brought culture and an appreciation for learning to a burgeoning Ohio community. It is the story of Polly Potter.

We know what she looked like from her portrait at the Western Reserve Historical Society – beautiful, huge-eyed, intense, with the storybook handspan waist. But because women of the 18th and 19th centuries were identified solely in terms of their relationships to men, they cannot be distinguished from one another by their tastes, their talents, their opinions or their activities outside the home. This makes it difficult to form a clear picture of an individual woman – to bring the hazy feminine silhouette into sharp focus.

Polly, or Mary Potter (Polly being a common nickname for Mary) was born in Wallingford, Connecticut in 1772, the second daughter of Dr. Jared Potter and Sarah Forbes Potter. That same year Dr. Potter had moved his family to Wallingford from New Haven believing that the seaport town was too exposed to withstand the storms of a war he believed to be imminent.

Dr. Potter was something of a character. An early opponent of slavery, his adversaries often charged him with being an infidel and a skeptic. His medical treatment was revolutionary for the time. He was a great believer in diet and regimen in the treating of chronic disease. Potter’s Powder was famous as a gastric remedy, consisting of chalk, ammonium carbonate, camphor and charcoal. This differed widely from the conventional purging and bleeding. His library was one of the most extensive in the state.

He was a speculating theologian in a time when religion was sacrosanct, and his speculations were thought to be of an “infidel character.” It is said that his pupils, although well versed in medical studies, generally left Dr. Potter’s office with “minds tinged with skeptical notions.” In 1803, when a fatal epidemic of dysentery was sweeping the Housatonic Valley, the leading citizens of the town of Huntington sent a messenger to Dr. Potter desiring his assistance, but tactfully suggesting that his heretical opinions not be “scattered about with his prescriptions.”

He had a great love of the natural world, and he purchased a farm of 50 acres about half a mile south of the village center where, along with fruits and flowers, he also cultivated silkworms. Dr. Potter’s character is important in understanding Polly. Lacking a son, it is probable that he imparted at least some of his knowledge, his liberalism and his appreciation of nature to his daughters. Certainly he must have had an enormous influence on them and their opinions and beliefs, and while little is known of Polly’s childhood and formal education, it is almost certain that her mind had been broadened beyond the provincial and that this breadth of outlook was never to leave her.

In 1790 Polly’s sister, Sarah, married Billius Kirtland, a young doctor at Wallingford who had been a pupil of her father’s and it was through this connection that Polly probably made the acquaintance of her future husband, Turhand Kirtland, brother to Bilius. The Kirtlands (or Kyrtlands) were one of the oldest New England families, the first of them having come to Massachusetts in 1635. Turhand was a major stockholder in the Connecticut Land Company, a widower, seventeen years Polly’s senior, a successful businessman, a builder of wagons and stage coaches.

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Be My Valentine!

Tokens of Affection, an exhibit of historic Valentine cards and postcards is on display now at the Arms Family Museum of Local History.

Visit on Valentine's Day and as a special treat get buy one get one free admission!

The exhibit will be up through the end of February.

African-American Pioneers

Mrs. Lavinia Simpson Webster

A member of the ninth class and the first black to graduate from the Rayen School in 1875, her family came to Youngstown in 1870 from Culpepper, Virginia. Mrs. Webster who was an accomplished pianist and vocalist, left an impressionable heritage to Youngstown and its black commuinty

Mr. Sully Johnson

A very genteel, cultued and skilled craftsman, came to Youngstown in 1909 from a small town near Beckley, West Virginia. He became involved in community affairs and in the early twenties directed the activities of the Booker T. Washington Settlement for a period of seven years before it gave way to the West Federal YMCA.

Mr. Johnson for many years, was the Scoutmaster for Troop 24 at Oakhill Avenue AME Church. Among his other works, Mr. Johnson was the carpenter for the construction of the Underwood Funeral Home at 422 Belmont Avenue in the 1930's.

Celebrating African-American History Month

Fletcher F. Armstrong & Maggie E. Harth Armstrong
F.F. Armstrong Haberdashery

Fletcher F. Armstrong, a native of Rocky Mount, North Carolina came to Youngstown from Cleveland in 1915. A graduate of Virginia State College with a strong background in economics and business, he mustered enough cash and credit and opened the F.F. Armstrong’s Haberdashery at 424 W. Federal Street, know as the Spring Common area in 1916. He was the first and only African-American owned and operated store of its kind in the city. His business closed in 1926 in part to Klu Klux Klan activity in and around Youngstown.



Armstrong’s wife, Maggie E. Harth Armstrong was a very versatile and learned woman whom he met at Virginia State College. She assisted with the Haberdashery, and in 1926 opened a beauty school in her home on Belmont Avenue where she manufactured and sold her own beauty products under the label of the “Forestyne” System. In 1929 she opened the first African-American owned and operated Beauty Shop and School in Youngstown which were the first to be licensed by the State of Ohio Department of Cosmetology.

Mr. & Mrs. Armstrong were among the founders and charter members of the Centenary ME Church, and active in the Belmont Branch YWCA. Mrs. Armstrong was also the first African-American woman to hold the position of president of a local PTA during the early 1930’s. The couple had seven children. Mr. Armstrong died in 1956, and Mrs. Armstrong died in 1962.


The Mahoning Valley Historical Society will be hosting a panel discussion entitled Discovering African-American History in the Mahoning Valley on Saturday, February 21st at 4:00 p.m. The discussion will include community historians actively researching and disseminating information about important people, places and events in the Mahoning Valley’s African American community; panel will include Stacey Adger, Steffon Jones, Vince Shivers, Judy Williams and Bill Lawson as moderator.

This free event will be held in the MVHS Carriage House, behind the Arms Family Museum, 648 Wick Avenue in Youngstown. Support for this program is provided by the Ruth H. Beecher Charitable Trust.

Celebrating African-American History Month

The Mahoning Valley Historical Society will be hosting a panel discussion entitled Discovering African-American History in the Mahoning Valley on Saturday, February 21st at 4:00 p.m. The discussion will include community historians actively researching and disseminating information about important people, places and events in the Mahoning Valley’s African American community; panel will include Stacey Adger, Steffon Jones, Vince Shivers, Judy Williams and Bill Lawson as moderator.

This free event will be held in the MVHS Carriage House, behind the Arms Family Museum, 648 Wick Avenue in Youngstown. Support for this program is provided by the Ruth H. Beecher Charitable Trust.

Panelist Vince Shivers has been exploring the life of P. Ross Berry, an influential African-American architect from Youngstown whose legacy includes important buildings such as the current home of the Board of Education and the Helen Chapel of the First Presbyterian Church of downtown Youngstown.

Plimton Ross Berry

P. Ross Berry (1835-1917) was the masonry contractor for many of the most significant buildings in the Mahoning Valley during the late 19th century. Born a free man in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, he began his career as a bricklayer at the young age of 16. At that time, Berry was commissioned by Lawrence County to do the brickwork for a new courthouse in New Castle, Pennsylvania. Ten years later, Berry and wife Mary traveled by boat to Youngstown after he was awarded the brickwork contract for the Rayen School (now the Youngstown Board of Education building.) During his forty year career in Youngstown, Berry became recognized as a master builder and respected citizen of the Mahoning Valley.

Berry proved himself to be an experienced and devoted bricklayer. While building the original Rayen School (now the Youngstown Board of Education Building), he simultaneously built second Saint Columba sanctuary. Other buildings included the Youngstown Opera House, the 1866 jail on Hazel Street, the 1876 Mahoning County Courthouse, the Tod House Hotel and many others. His masonry work included the Homer Hamilton & Company Foundry and Machine Shop and the Dollar Bank Building.

During his career in Youngstown, Berry contributed heavily to the growth of religious institutions in the Valley when he was commissioned to build three major churches including St. Columba, First Presbyterian, and First Baptist Temple.

With his partner, Lemuel Stewart, Berry built a legacy that would last into the present. Stewart was a building contractor who moved to the Mahoning Valley after Berry. The Stewart and Berry families were connected by both friendship and marriage and their sons continued as builders in the Youngstown area. Berry’s own four sons were trained as brick masons and later became union organizers of the Brick Masons Local #8.

Members of the Berry family were also the driving force behind the founding of St. Augustine’s Church in 1907. Today, many descendents of the Berry family belong to this church. P. Ross Berry greatly contributed to the building boom that occurred in Youngstown at the turn of the century, not just with bricks and stone, but with a family and descendents who have contributed greatly to the history and heritage of our community.

Upcoming Events

Reservations can be made by email to mvhs@mahoninghistory.org

RSVP by November 28th.